To meet the need of the multi-medium computer system nowadays, the integrated circuit memory device has been recently used for storing huge amount of information such as voice and image information. The information such as voice or image has characteristics of continuity of data. In other words, those information are, most of the time, stored and retrieved sequentially or serially.
Typically, a memory system of a data processing system consists of a plurality of integrated circuit (IC) memory devices. For instance, in FIG. 1(a), a plurality of IC memory devices are shown to constitute a memory system to which a central processor unit (CPU) 12 is coupled within a data processing system. Under this kind of system configuration, it is required to have external pins, such as P1, P2, etc., to distinguish the different address range occupied by the individual memory device 110, 112, etc. As shown in FIG. 1(a), the Vss is coupled to P1, P2 pins of the first memory device 110 respectively indicative of a Page 0 of the address range being occupied by the first memory device 110, and the Vdd is coupled to the P1 pin while the Vss is coupled to P2 pin of the second memory device 112 indicative of a Page 1 of the address range being occupied by the second memory device 112. When only two pins P1, P2 are available for this purpose, the maximum number of the memory device used in the data processor system shown is four. The first drawback of this design relates to the extra page select pins, such as P1,P2, . . . etc., being required for each memory device in the system. The second drawback relates to the human mistake often occurred when connecting P1, P2 pins to the reference voltage Vdd, Vss.
In order to avoid the above-mentioned drawbacks, some manufacturers burn the page number into the memory device label the page number thereon at the last stage of the manufacture process under the request of the users of the memory device. Therefore, each memory device as made has a fixed and unalterable page number therein as shown in FIG. 1(b). This approach, solving the issue associated with FIG. 1(a), creates new shortcomings. For instance, since the page number is fixed for each memory device, the manufacture has to stock a certain amount of the memory device with different page number which is detrimental to inventory management. For another instance, the system maker who implements the memory device with fixed page number in the system they make has to ensure the system as made does not include memory devices having same page number. Otherwise, the system would malfunction.
In order to solve the above-mentioned shortcomings of the conventional approaches, the invention provides a memory device with page select capability.